


new york, i love you, but-

by theodxcker



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-28 21:04:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21143192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theodxcker/pseuds/theodxcker
Summary: ( inspired by corrina, corrina by curlymcclain ! please go check out their fic, if you haven't already! https://archiveofourown.org/works/20841806 )When Boris keeps his promise to arrive in New York, it gives Theo an entirely new perspective...........aka just au fluff.





	new york, i love you, but-

**Author's Note:**

> hello again! i sort of tapped into the story style i explored in badr al dine for this one. both the title and opening line are also based on the song "new york, i love you but you're bringing me down" by lcdsoundsystem. it's always reminded me of theo, and it really helped inspire parts of this fic. i had a lot of fun writing this, so i hope it makes for a decent story. thanks so much for checking out my work! ♥

_New York, you’re safer, and you’re wasting my time._

Three weeks. My stomach dropped slightly, discomfort rising with the heat flushed against my cheeks. Exactly three weeks ago, I’d closed the cab door, the sound echoing down the desolate street. Ideally I would say I left Vegas, but in truth, I felt every part of me still stranded somewhere in the winding, sand-washed streets.

Sure, the loud, tight-knit composure of New York was nothing new to me. In fact, I preferred it greatly to Vegas. I was home.

Everything about Hobart and Blackwell was comforting to me. The jarring image of the city proudly displayed itself as immovable, and being in the workshop beside Hobie only increased my sense of security. His voice was kind and caring, ringing through the openness as we talked about everything and nothing all at once.

My long, off-beat days at the Barbours felt long gone, nothing more than flickers in a past I couldn’t touch as I grew older. The year I’d spent in Vegas felt more and more like an eternity with every memory that crossed my mind. It hadn’t even been a month, and yet, crying with laughter beside Boris on our rusted swing set as the world around us melted into oblivion could not have felt farther from the present. 

I could never bring myself to say it out loud, but I thought about Boris every day. So much so that simply “missing” did not feel like the right emotion. “I miss you” had never been a phrase that struck me with much weight, if any. You miss your favorite shop when it closes down, but it doesn’t warrant much more than a fleeting moment of disappointment. You miss your mother as a child, hidden away in a crowded classroom, but of course it never lasts long when you see her every afternoon. 2:30 on the dot. It felt almost laughable to label what I felt as simply missing Boris. 

I had, of course, told Hobie about him. A day or two after I’d shown up, sitting face to face at the table, just as we had the very day I’d returned the ring. 

My father is dead, yes, drunken car crash. Unfortunate. Boris has to show up, of course he does. I know him well enough to know he’s probably on his way right now. 

I had sent one or two texts, but they all went unanswered. 

“MDE IT BK. R U COMING?” 

“U OK? ITS THEO BTW.” 

Any time the shop bell rang, I raced to the front door as fast as my legs would carry me. All for not, however, as each and every time it was not him. No shaggy, dark hair falling in his face. No goofy smile when he caught me staring just a little too long. No annoying nicknames or loud laughter echoing for miles. 

Of course I loved New York. Anyone that had been within a 5-foot radius of me during the entirety of my stay in Vegas knew how much I longed to go back. I cherished letters from Hobie like some priceless treasure, stashed away in my desk drawer to be read over and over. I told Boris about him, and the shop, everything in detail so vivid, it felt more like I was assuring myself. Cementing it all in my mind so I could never lose the little part of my soul that rested almost 3,000 miles away. While I adored it for having everything that Vegas lacked, that in itself was part of the problem. Boris had travelled to more places than I could name, and yet it was hard for me to picture him here, by my side. Boris, who was the perfect embodiment of the burning, blinding intensity of Vegas’ outskirts, was a heavy contrast to the sleepy, peaceful sturdiness of the shop. 

New York plunged in the same murky waters as the painting: the middle. Everything in my life was before, and after. The city, and my broken little bird, stuck out awkwardly, tearing out pages from the mid-point of my story. Little did I know about the expansive midnight light that was about to illuminate my book, allowing me to tape up the pages as adequately as possible. 

It was rare that the back doorbell rang, and even scarcer still that it was anyone other than a FedEx driver. I’d been leaning against the kitchen counter, talking about something that I now could not remember, even if my life depended on it. Though it appeared irrational, I couldn’t help but feel a wave of anxiety. Hobie patted me softly on the shoulder, before disappearing down on his way to the door. As of late, I hadn’t had much luck with unexpected guests. Seeing my father and Xandra placed awkwardly in the living room of the Barbours’ was fiddly, like actors on the wrong film set, unspokenly unwelcome and itching to leave. I wasn’t quite ready for another “surprise”, as Mrs. Barbour had called it. I knew well enough how the first one had worked out. 

Lost in my head, it took me a moment to realize that Hobie was calling for me from downstairs. “Coming!” I called back, my voice sounding a million miles away. I slid off the counter, feeling detached from my body as I made my way downstairs. It was almost as if my body was travelling, leaving my mind in the kitchen, short-circuiting in a puddle of fearful thoughts. Just as the back doorway entered my field of vision, everything inside of me caught flame. I was a blank canvas, in an instant - drenched and drowned into heavy oranges and vibrant red hues. Though it seemed perfectly predictable, I could hardly fathom what was right in front of me.

“Potter!” 

Throwing a bag down, something large and ugly, he leapt forward. Still trying to convince myself that this was, in fact, Boris, here in New York, I shakily rose my arms to hug him in return. 

“Boris…” 

My tone spilled out more like a question than anything else, but in truth, I didn’t know what to say. The last few things I’d said to him played on a constant loop in the back of my mind. 

You have to come. Promise me. We’ll go to Brighton Beach, that’s where all the Russians hang out. And we can go to school together. And-

“You look so surprised! You told me to come, asked me for a promise, even, yes?” 

At this, my cheeks flushed awkwardly. Seeing him here was a form of surreal I hadn’t known humanly possible until now. His maroon sweater looked stained with something dark at the sleeve. When he turned to look up at Hobie, I caught a glimpse of the eye hidden by his long bangs. Every shade of purple and a tinge of black on his eyelid. When I’d asked him to follow me, begged him practically, I hadn’t quite stopped to think that it may be a challenge. A dangerous challenge, at that. 

Even so, Boris seemed thrilled to have arrived. As Hobie led us down to my room, I watched him gawk at the surroundings out of the corner of my eye. Who could blame him though? Both the upstairs shop, and the workshop, appeared like art. Akin to something out of some hand drawn Disney film, every corner had an inexplicable magic touch to it. I could only wonder to myself what else this magic had curled up in waiting under its sleeve. 

After a slightly amusing twenty minutes of Boris wolfing down an actual meal and about three glasses of water, I led him back to my room so he could get settled. As he pawed through the clothes in his bag, I tried to think of what exactly I wanted to say. I was so happy, relieved even, that he’d actually come through. To say that, however, felt clingy, like I was bending and breaking some unspoken rule. Then again, there were a lot of unspoken rules that Boris had broken last I’d seen him. 

“I’m really happy you’re here.” 

He paused his shuffling, tossing down his crumpled Never Summer shirt to look over at me. 

“Yah? I’m happy too. Glad I could find you!” He did look genuinely happy. I knew what his smiles were like when he was hiding something from me, or stumbling through a quick conversation with my father before I could lock him away in the bathroom to wipe at his bloody nose. His expression now was different, affection glimmering in his eyes. 

“How did you find me, anyway? I didn’t have a chance to give you the address before…”

Before you kissed me. The words were lodged in my throat, stuck behind an invisible barrier. I let out a quiet cough, fingers rubbing awkwardly at my shoulder. 

“You always wrote to this man, left a lot of unfinished letters too. Wasn’t so hard once I knew where I was going.” His comedic, bark of a laugh. “Look at yourself, you made it the same way I am sure!” 

Admittedly, it hadn’t been as hard as I had initially worried. The slideshow that popped into my head of Boris catching buses and surviving off shoplifted apples and chocolate didn’t feel at all out of place. 

“Yea, Popper and I survived a couple bus rides on potato chips alone.” 

At this, Boris flung himself off the bed, beaming as if I’d just told him Publishers Clearing House was at the door with one of those massive cardboard checks. 

“Popchyk! Is he here?”

At the sound of his name, I could hear little toenails clacking frantically towards us. Boris was giggling uncontrollably, pushing the hair out of his eyes in anticipation.

I’d never seen a dog so excited in my life. The two were jumping around each other, Boris’ shrieks of joy blending in with Popchyk’s high pitched whining. It brought memories of Vegas flooding back in one big rush - the two had been the best of friends. It had probably felt like years to Popchyk since Boris has been around. It sure felt like that for me, anyways. 

Even so, it was effortless to fall back into our Vegas lifestyle, more or less. We constantly joked and laughed, spending most of our days lolling around on my bed watching television and movies. Although I didn’t notice it at first, I was beginning to recognize a sense of safety, starting deep in my chest and running throughout my body every day spent with Boris. I’d known I was happy to be back in New York, but this was something else. I didn’t quite have a word for it, at least, not one that felt applicable to us. I tried not to think about it much. Although, things had really started falling back into place. 

Boris, spoiled by the heat of Las Vegas, huddled me close to his chest during the night to keep warm. We shared food, cigarettes (only outside of the shop), clothes, everything really. A couple times we went out to dinner with Hobie, and a couple more times he and I shoplifted (“Bought!” I hissed, over his chuckling as we elbowed through the door) some snacks to keep around the shop. It felt exactly like Vegas, only better. I was home, and now it truly did feel like home. 

Don’t get me wrong, I still had bad days. Crying out from a particularly realistic nightmare, or even just passing by a shop I’d last entered holding hands with my mother. More than once, Boris had to listen to me blubber incoherently, tucked away in a public bathroom after passing her favorite secondhand book outlet. Things weren’t perfect, but could they ever be? What did it even mean to have a perfect life? The more I thought about it, the more it struck me that I’d fallen into the best outcome I could have had. Surrounded by people who cared about me, living a watered down, but albeit safer, version of a life that had made me the happiest I’d been since the beginning of the end. 

I had been convinced, for basically the entirety of my time there, that I was going to die in Las Vegas. At the time, I would’ve been fine with that. Days passed, life progressed, and I began to realize that there was a reason I didn’t. Hours with Hobie in the workshop, learning new tips and tricks as Boris sat on the table behind us, wide-eyed. Nights spent, laughing and stumbling under the busy, watchful eye of downtown street lamps. The immense comfort I felt under Hobie’s roof, paired with the security of Boris’ constant, glowing presence, was more than I’d had in years. I saw the city in a new light, everything felt warmer and haloed. Perhaps it was childish to think, but I was beginning to feel like it was somehow to presence of my mother, aware that my life was looking up, and telling me it was okay to be happy. That she would always love me, and love me just the same, no matter who I grew to be. 

It still hurt, and it always would. My internal wounds from the museum were permanent, likely to tear open and bleed for as long as I lived. By some stupid accident, I had chained myself to a perch, destined to spend the rest of my days with my imprisonment exposed for all to whisper about. The more time I spent in the city with Boris, however, I came to understand that their whispers didn’t matter. That even if this chain was welded to my ankle, I didn’t have to dwell on it. I could learn to hear the dragging of metal, to feel the weight pulling on my leg, but I didn’t have to let it stop me. I loved, and always will love New York, and maybe it didn’t have to bring me down anymore.


End file.
